1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a electric vehicle, a taxing server, a charging apparatus, a drive management method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a technology called a smart grid has gained attention. The smart grid is a technical framework to realize efficient power usage by constructing a new transmission network having a communication channel along with the transmission network and using the intelligent transmission network. The idea of the smart grid, as a background, is to realize efficient management of power usage, swift handling of an incident when such an incident occurs, remote control of power usage, distributed power generation using power generation facilities outside the control of a power company, or charging management of a electric vehicle. Particularly, effective utilization of in-house power generating stations using renewable energy by ordinary households or operators other than power companies and charging management of various motor-driven movable bodies typically including electric vehicles have attracted considerable attention. Incidentally, renewable energy is energy generated without using fossil fuel.
Power generated by ordinary households or operators other than power companies is used by power generation operators. Excessive power after being used by the power generation operators is currently purchased by power companies. However, purchasing power supplied from power generation facilities outside the control of a power company is a heavy burden to the power company. For example, amount of power supplied from photovoltaic power generation facilities depends on the weather. Moreover, amount of power supplied from in-house power generating stations of ordinary households depends on power usage of ordinary households that largely changes day by day. Thus, it is difficult for power companies to receive stable power supply from power generation facilities outside the control of power companies. For the above reason, it may be difficult for power companies to purchase power in the future.
Thus, a home battery initiative that uses power generated by power generation facilities outside the control of power companies after being temporarily stored in batteries has recently gained attention. For example, a method of using power generated by photovoltaic power generation facilities by storing such power in batteries and making up for shortages in the night or when the weather is bad is considered. Further, methods of limiting amount of power received from a power company in accordance with the battery storage amount and using power stored in batteries in the daytime when power rates are higher by storing power in batteries supplied by a power company in the night when power rates are lower are considered. Batteries can store power as DC, which eliminates the need for DC/AC conversion or AC/DC conversion during transmission so that losses during conversion can be reduced.
Thus, various expectations regarding power management mingle with one another amid the smart grid initiative. To realize such power management, the smart grid initiative is premised on having a communication channel along with a transmission network. That is, exchanging information about power management by using the intelligent transmission network is assumed. However, in a region where a communication infrastructure has been built, instead of using a transmission network as a communication channel, information about power management may be exchanged by using a network constructed by the deployed communication infrastructure. That is, what is important in the smart grid initiative is how efficiently to use power generation facilities and storage facilities that are not managed in a unified manner.
The power management in the smart grid initiative includes, as described above, charging management of a electric vehicle. A typical example of the electric vehicle is an electric vehicle (EV). However, in addition to the electric vehicles, for example, motor-driven bicycles, electric buses, motor-driven freight cars, motor-driven ships, and motor-driven planes can also be considered as motor-driven movable bodies. Naturally, motor-driven movable bodies have accumulators or capacitors (hereinafter, denoted as batteries) mounted thereon. Motor-driven movable bodies are driven using power stored in batteries.
A battery means any unit capable of storing energy in some form and discharging energy again. Typical examples thereof include accumulators and capacitors.
As the accumulator, for example, a general accumulator such as a lithium-ion battery, nickel-metal hydride battery, lead storage battery, and NAS battery can be exemplified. Moreover, in addition to these general accumulators that can currently be used, any accumulator that will be available in the future can also be used as the accumulator. On the other hand, as the capacitor, for example, a general capacitor such as a field-effect capacitor and ceramic capacitor or a large-capacity electric double layer capacitor under development in recent years can be used.
As a system that stores electrical energy in a re-dischargeable form, a pumped storage generation system can be exemplified. The pumped storage generation system converts electrical energy into potential energy for storage. Then, when electrical energy is re-discharged, the potential energy is used to generate power. For example, water is pumped up to a higher place using electrical energy and when electrical energy is discharged, hydraulic power generation is carried out using energy that causes the water to fall. Thus, a system that converts electrical energy into potential energy can also be considered as a kind of battery.
As a mechanism to store electrical energy in a re-dischargeable form, a structure that uses electrolysis of water is known. In this mechanism, when electrical energy is stored, electrolysis of water is carried out using electrical energy and generated hydrogen is stored. Then, when electrical energy is re-discharged, the stored hydrogen is burnt to generate power or the stored hydrogen is used to generate power using fuel cells. Such a mechanism can also be considered as a kind of battery.
As described above, all structures capable of temporarily storing electrical energy by some method and providing electrical energy again can be considered as a kind of battery.
Charging facilities set up in ordinary households or charging facilities set up by various operators are used to charge batteries of a electric vehicle. For charging management of motor-driven movable bodies from charging facilities, a mechanism that allows the charging facilities to identify each electric vehicle is necessary.
Regarding such a mechanism, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2009-213301 and 2009-201198 disclose a method that performs authentication between charging facilities and an electric vehicle during charging by setting up a communication channel between the charging facilities and the electric vehicle. Using this method enables the charging facilities to identify the electric vehicle to be charged or the electric vehicle to identify the charging facilities to charge the vehicle. If a combination of the charging facilities and electric vehicle is identified for charging and a communication channel is established between both, various kinds of information about charged watt-hours and the like can be exchanged using the communication channel. Thus, it becomes possible to perform various kinds of charging management using information that can be exchanged via the communication channel.